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July 15, 2010

Geeky Tattoo Series - Triceratops

I've loved seeing the variety of tattoos people have wrote me about for this series. I am especially adoring this week's feature courtesy of Jonathan Fuhrman - a triceratops tattoo.

How long have you had the tattoo?
Coming up on a year. I got the tattoo sometime last summer.

What's the story behind the tattoo?
Good friends of mine, a married couple, picked up a machine and started doing tattoos. We got together one Saturday with the intent of doing a tattoo of the theatrical poster for the original 1978 Dawn of the Dead but shortly into sketching it out we realized it’d be very difficult to pull off. We probably spent an hour or so throwing ideas back and forth until I decided I wanted to get a dinosaur tattoo. I always dug the idea of wildlife tattoos and thought getting a dinosaur was kind of like a tribute to my youth. Every kid wanted to be a paleontologist, right? Triceratops was probably my favorite dinosaur as a kid. In my imagination, being an herbivore kept them in the “good guy” camp and the fact that they weren’t defenseless made them seem kind of heroic – they could hold their own against a Tyrannosaurus Rex if need be.

Did you get any flak from loved ones for it?
Nope. People either loved it or thought it was hysterical. I think a lot of people felt it was a good fit for me.

How many people recognize it?
I’ve had strangers ask me about it before, to clarify what it is, or say they think its neat, etc. I was on a flight once and two of the flight attendants said they thought it was cool.

Any future geeky tattoos planned?
Big time. I wouldn’t mind getting a Tusken Raider, a Talosian, Zira from Planet of the Apes, Race Bannon, Lum from Urusei Yatsura, something from Robotech, Han Solo’s blaster, the theater seat profile from MST3K, the cover art for the first issue of Luke Cage, D&D ampersand, something in a pixilated style from the 8-bit era. So many things. Another friend of mine suggested getting a tattoo of Spock with a thought bubble containing the bearded Spock from “Mirror, Mirror.” I thought that was pretty cool. It wouldn’t be clear if he was contemplating what it’d be like to be evil or if he was just thinking about growing a beard. It’s tough to say though. I’m also a big fan of traditional tattoo art which has its own geekiness to some extent. With limited space you really need to make sure you pick something that’s emblematic of all aspects of your inner-geek. The Triceratops definitely captures that for me.